Huckabee and Obama win in Iowa
Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney defeated as the race to be US president kicks off.
Campaign boost
The former actor Fred Thompson edged out John McCain, the Arizona senator, by 300 votes to take third place.
Clinton, the former first lady, was considered in some quarters the almost certain Democratic nominee, a few months ago.
“Today we are sending a clear message that we are going to have change, and that change will be a Democratic president in the White House,” she said in Des Moines, with Bill Clinton, her husband and a former president, next to her.
Controversial comment
Al Jazeera’s Dave Marash in Des Moines said that the result will give Obama momentum, credibility and much more money to campaign and compete with Clinton in New Hampshire and during the next month leading up to Super Tuesday on February 5.
The Republican result was a slight blow for Romney who had a far greater campaign budget than Huckabee but a slight boost for McCain who has largely sacrificed canvassing in Iowa to concentrate on New Hampshire.
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However, Marash reported that a controversial comment made by McCain on Thursday may yet undermine his campaign.
“He told a crowd in Derry, New Hampshire, that if the US had to stay in Iraq for 100 years that would be alright with him,” Marash said.
“In the past, McCain’s policy of backing a US troop surge was aimed at allowing for an earlier withdrawal. This incautious statement could come back to haunt the senator.”
However Jack Burkman, a Republican strategist, says the results from Iowa give little indication of how the presidential race will unfold in the coming months.
“The political question in the US is what does that momentum mean going forward? I am sure it does not mean that much,” he told Al Jazeera.
“The message for international audiences is that, this time round, the US primaries have changed in that you have virtually everything at stake on February 5.
“In the past, you had a much more staggered process so that Iowa and New Hampshire meant a lot more. What’s going on in the US is the major TV networks are commercialising this for their own ends and profits.”
The race now moves on to New Hampshire on January 5 but there will be two less candidates after the Democrats Chris Dood and Joseph Biden announced they were withdrawing.
Huckabee was little known outside the state of Arkansas a few months ago [EPA] |